John Holland Aviation Services
December 18th, 2009
John Holland Aviation Services is set to continue its strong growth after taking some of the Virgin Blue heavy maintenance work from Air New Zealand’s engineering unit.
JHAS will today announce it has signed a five-year alliance deal with Virgin to maintain its Boeing 737s.
The deal is the first of its type and will give the Melbourne-based engineering group about half of the Virgin work.
“We’ll particularly focus on all the short-duration work, such as undercarriage changes, engine cowl work and the shorter heavy maintenance checks because they don’t have the cost of ferrying to New Zealand,” JHAS general manager Andrew Henderson said.
“So they can rapidly shoot aircraft through, and you’ll see Virgin aircraft in our hangar most nights.”
“There are a large number of vists planned over the next 12 months, so it’s very good for us.”
John Holland took over the former Ansett engineering facility about 14 months ago and has since doubled the number of aviation maintenance engineers in its workforce and launched new training schemes.
The facility recently won the heavy maintenance work for Tiger Airways’ Airbus A320s and is chasing a similar deal for the airline’s Adelaide-based A319s.
It also does Jetstar’s overnight maintenance as well as a combination of the 737 classic and NG work for Qantas.
It also has contracts with the Australian Defence Force, having recently won a $9 million deal to provide oxygen cylinders and instruments for the RAAF.
It has just successfully completed its first Civil Aviation Safety Authority audit and is seeking New Zealand certification so it can seek work across the Tasman.
Mr Henderson estimated that staffing would reach 500 by the end of next year.
He expected a third heavy maintenance line to be running within 12 months.
At the same time, the facility was pushing its component work, ground support and line maintenance businesses.
“We started with 130 employees. We’ve now got a bit over 300 and I’m recruiting another 70,” Mr Henderson said.
“But primarily it’s AMEs (aircraft maintenance engineers), unlicensed guys, that we’re chasing. We’ve already got a very large pool of licensed people…to make sure we had coverage of all the current aircraft types.”
“We’ve already filled those holes pretty mcuh. Our international line maintenance business is going gangbusters, so we’re looking for A340 and 777 licensed guys, but for our heavy maintenance we’re looking to expand our numbers.”
The JHAS boss said the company’s international line maintenance business had doubled in the last three months as it won contracts from companies such as Air Cailin, Air Vanuatu, Air NZ and Vietnam Airlines.
“We’ve probably got 10 or more bids in for others,” he said. “So the international line maintenance side is going very, very well as people start to realise we’re not just a bunch of guys working out of trucks.”
“If they need a cherry picker or they need an air start unit or whatever, we have all that sort of gear.”
Commenting on the furore over maintenance work going offshore, Mr Henderson said John Holland was well prepared to compete against overseas maintenance providers and had not been hurt.
“All of the Australian carriers are extremely focused on aviation safety and none of them will entertain anthhign that might in any way effect that,” he said.
“I’m sure that’s foremost on their minds when they make a decision whether to outsource.”
“There’s no doubt that putting it in an Australian operation like ourselves is low-risk alternative.”
He singled out the facility’s flexible collective agreement — which allows it to schedule staff when work is available and send them home when it’s quite — as one of its major drawcards.
“In the first week of September, we’ll be busier than we’ve ever known — we’ll have two Virgin aircraft, two Qantas aircraft in the hangar and everyone will be working very long hours,” he said.
“But earlier this month, it was a bit quieter and people went fishing, or saw their kids’ swimming carnival or something like that.”
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer – August 22, 2008